The Lacemaker, 1977, its oblique sexual politics appear dated twenty-five years later. Pascal Laine (author) and Claude Goretta would have us believe that the young male student's callowness leads to heartbreaking tragedy for Huppert's character. Twenty-five years later that assertion seems callow itself, and shallow political nonsense. Healthy young women are not so helpless. I understand the movie as a love story (intimate nudity is substituted for sex, and any love they may have shared we must take on faith) concerning two pathologically depressed people. They are drawn together by their mutual recognition and the hope that the other can alleviate their individual suffering. Of course, they discover that their depression prevents any real intimacy.
Review of The Lacemaker
